


Ruin

by A_Shields



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Ben being Ben, Just Ben missing Callum really, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post Breakup Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24904687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Shields/pseuds/A_Shields
Summary: After the ticking time bombs in Ben and Callum’s relationship finally explode, Ben tries to go back to his old ways. Only to find it's not as easy as he thought.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 20
Kudos: 43





	Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so I started writing a VERY different fic to this but this just popped into my head and I’m not sorry. I might finish and post the other one at some point, we’ll see. I’ve also written from Ben’s POV for the first time so sorry if it’s terrible. Oh, and please feel free to laugh at my catastrophic attempt to write some sexual content, I guess 2020 is getting to me more than I thought. Also I wrote this at 1am so again apologies for any mistakes or if it’s just really bad. 
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the essay these notes turned out to be, stay safe and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> P.S it physically pained me to write that Ian was behind the bar of the Vic but we roll.

Callum was right, two wrongs don’t make a right. He had lied about the warehouse job and his hearing getting worse and Callum hadn’t told Ben about Lola sleeping with Peter. That’s why, two weeks later Ben is sat drinking alone in the pub while his brother watches on from behind the bar, his usual smug sneer replaced with a look of partial concern but mostly judgement in his eyes - he was Ian Beale after all.

It had been two weeks since Ben had lost the love of his life and he had barely slept a wink, only falling into the reprieve of sleep when he had cried himself to the point of exhaustion and passed out. Sleeping had become even more sacred to Ben over the last fortnight, it was his new heaven on earth, a utopia that used to take the form of laying in the arms of the man he loved, feeling protected and being gently lulled to sleep by Callum’s rhythmic breathing on his neck. But now that was out of reach, and he had to settle for dreaming about being in Callum’s arms, his fingers tracing patterns on Ben’s skin, Callum’s warmth guiding him to safety. But of course, as with every pleasure, sleeping was a double-edged sword, for the peace it brought only served to exaggerate the pain he felt when he woke up in an empty bed, cold sheets, a heavy heart and the technicolour of his dreams extinguished to a lifeless grey.

It’s ten minutes later when he can’t bear Ian’s beady eyes bearing into him anymore, it twelve minutes later when he finds himself in a cubicle of the toilets with a bloke - Andy he thinks his name was - that he’s been eye fucking for the last half and hour. It would have been faster, but he's out of practice, plus he saw Callum come into the pub with a bunch of his new police mates on his way to the toilets and for some reason he didn’t quite understand, Ben didn’t want Callum to see. Normally this would be ideal, an ex watching you as you’ve just pulled, showing them who’s boss, that Ben certainly doesn’t need them, and he can get any man he wants. But he doesn’t want to play that game, not this time, not with Callum.

Andy is kissing him roughly, pushing him up against the wall of the cubicle in a way that normally Ben would find thrilling but not tonight, instead it’s verging on being too much. He closes his eyes presses his hands on the wall behind him, the vibrations from the music in the pub providing evidence that he’s here, he’s breathing and he’s doing this. He moves a hand to the back of Andy’s neck, his hair is short, prickly and the feeling of it against his fingers is so familiar it almost hurts. Ben presses in, wanting to lose himself in another featureless body, deepening the kiss and longing for a time that he didn’t have to imagine it was Callum’s lips moving against his own.

Ben feels empty. It’s not the size of the guy although he doesn’t measure up to Callum in any way, but there’s a void he can’t fill. An emptiness that fills his being and makes him feel like he’s been screaming into a vacuum ever since Callum told him to pack his things and leave their flat, their _home_. He scrunches his eyes closed again and tries to get lost in the feeling of their bodies colliding but it’s clumsy and awkward and they don’t fit, don’t move together the way he and Callum did.

It’s god knows how many minutes later when Andy is breathing harshly against Ben’s cheek, any semblance of rhythm gone and only out for himself. He slaps his palm against the cubicle wall next to Ben’s head as he comes, startling him and forcing his eyes open. Ben’s mind is torn away from the memories of deep blue eyes and sweat damp hair, ghost light touches and firm thrusts that were taking him to the brink. Instead, he feels a foreign hand roughly finish him off, a feeling akin to bereavement washing over him at the knowledge that Callum is no longer the last person to do that for him.

When Ben finally opens his eyes it’s to a look of frustration. For a moment he is confused, until he sees Andy’s lips moving and realises he must have been talking.

“Sorry mate, I’m a bit deaf. Gonna have to speak up a bit” the uncensored look of disgust on Andy’s face disappears as quickly as it arrived, but it was there, and it makes Ben feel smaller than he has in a long, long time.

“Cheers mate. I needed that” he was patting Ben on the shoulder, it was clumsy, careless, a way Callum would never dream of touching him. Lightyears away from the soft caresses and feather light brush of Callum’s fingers roaming Ben’s body. 

Andy’s mouth was moving exaggeratedly in a way that Ben could only take to mean that he was shouting, talking down to Ben like he was some kind of idiot that hadn’t gotten him off moments earlier. He gave Ben a curt nod before swiftly leaving the cubicle and Ben alone, unsure if he wanted to follow the guy and beat the shit out of him or curl into a ball and cry until he passed out again, his one-way ticket back to Callum.

He stayed where he was for a few moments, breathing slowly and tidying himself up, trying to get a handle on himself. Hook ups were never his favourite thing despite what he said to everyone, but they had never made him feel this cheap and laid bare before. But things are different now, he had been stupid enough the let himself get used to being cared for, being held as he came down, pulled against a solid chest and grounded by the thudding of the kindest heart in the world against his back. Tonight just served as a reminder, solidified a lesson Ben had begun learning when Paul was with him one moment and gone the next; while those luxuries are great when you’re in love and happy, they just aren’t meant for the real world.

He was just about to leave when through the crack in the door he could see Callum washing his hands, Fuck. There’s no way he wouldn’t have seen Andy coming out of Ben’s cubicle. He should wait for Callum to leave, slip out and no one would know, Callum wouldn’t judge him, and Ben could try and forget it ever happened.

He thought he’d decided to stay put, to save Callum and himself from the hurt and shame Callum seeing him would cause. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and Callum needs to know who Ben is, that this is him and this is what he does and he’s better off without him. And Ben needs to feel this, he deserves the shame and the pain and the self-loathing this brings, for putting Callum through hell for months only to leave him the second he made one mistake. 

Before he knew it, his hand was at the lock, sliding it open. He won’t hide away; he’ll slap on his cocky smirk that shows Callum he can have a good time without him too, even if it couldn’t be further from the truth. He can make friends too even if he can’t remember their names or faces in the light of day, or the iridescent light of a toilet for that matter.

He knows this feeling all too well; he’s being seduced by his demons again. He knows this is self-destructive and will do so much more harm than good and he should just _stay in the damn cubicle_ but it’s too late. He can’t help himself; this is what he does. He lets people in only to push them away when he fucks up, gives them his love only to rip it away like everyone does to him. He plays the game of being a normal person with normal feelings with normal ways to cope with them until he can’t anymore, then he does this. He erupts, with a nameless, faceless body in a grotty pub toilet with the man he says he would do anything for standing mere feet away.

For as long as he can remember Ben’s life has bee a delicate dance of testing how hard he can pull on the pin that’s holding his life together until it finally gives up, detonating his entire world. It a dance he knows well, toying with his happiness, with the lives of those he loves. It a dance he does every day, every second, risking everything for the thrill of it, because it’s what he deserves, no matter how much it hurts him or the people he loves.

The second he walks out of the cubicle Callum’s eyes lock on to his in the mirror and time stands still. Ben is frozen to the spot for what in reality can only be a few seconds but feels like years. But reality doesn’t matter anymore, not when fantasy is the only place he can be with Callum.

Ben has witnessed to a lot of awful things in his life, endless fights, the horrors of prison, his own mother’s fake funeral, Heather’s lifeless body and the cacophony of violence that accompanies being Phil Mitchell’s son. But this. The look in Callum’s eyes, the breath that has soothed Ben to sleep on so many nights hitching in Callum’s throat as it dawns on him what has happened, what Ben has done. The unfiltered hurt and betrayal. But it's the absence of the warmth and light in his eyes that Ben was always so sure to find there that really makes him think that this is it. He’s broken him, _ruined_ him.

Callum will never be the same again and Ben did that.

Ben ducks his head as he leaves the toilets, because looking at Callum for a second longer is too much, he doesn’t need to painstakingly take time to make a souvenir of a sight he wants so much to forget but he knows is already burned into his memory for life. He leaves the pub as fast as his legs will carry him, he’d leave his body if he could, if it meant putting an end to all this.

He manages to slam the kitchen door shut behind him before the bile that’s risen in his throat can’t be contained anymore.


End file.
